


Mitski Lyrics

by Blank_Ideas



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23863231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blank_Ideas/pseuds/Blank_Ideas
Summary: Not actually about Mitski.This is Peter confronting his past and the legacy Mordechai left behind, Elias is mentioned but not present and Peter is quite possibly dead the whole time.Based partially on an little rp I did-2020, the year we give Peter the development he deserves.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Mitski Lyrics

“Hardly a disadvantage in the world we live in. What is it, Peter, have you become soft?” The man before him snarled the words, his movement and shape muffled by the annoying bleariness that hung over Peter’s eyes. Peter must be his name. “Caring for fools around you, who know not the truth about the seriousness of what we deal with- who have no goals with their existence?” This was a dead man. “Perhaps it isn’t such a pity we lost you so soon after all.”

“I’m not soft.” Peter felt his lips quiver around the words, odd because he could not feel the cold after having spent so long within this cooled void- the lonely but not quite. Numb, he’d been numb for so long as he’d stared over the railing of The Tundra, his eyes fixated on the swirling mist that obscured the ocean and his only comfort. But now his lips were shaking around teeth and he could feel the sharp grind of his molars against his cheek innards.

Mordechai was here, Peter couldn’t remember how long he had been, stood not five metres away with that same stern expression that had boiled Peter alive via old portraits about the manor during his childhood. He’d recognise the man regardless, sharing his sullen looks and the dense private look to his eyes- he’d been told so often as a child, at weddings and funerals, where distant aunts or uncles would proudly puff out their chests and told him he was a true Lukas heir. The amount of pressure Peter had felt from that, birthing sharp strings of disappointment that sliced his nerves and confidence whenever he stepped a toe out of line all of his childhood.It had made him miserable, time and time again.

The memories felt sticky within Peter’s mind, uncomfortable, unwanted. He wished he could be alone. In solace.

Solace where the weight of legacy could not hang desperately upon his shoulders.

“I just realise that the consequences of my actions may be inconveniences later on.” Peter was angry. Suddenly he recognised such a feeling, the stinging burn that bubbled upwards and penetrated the numbness he’d come to know. Thoughts, memories, for a moment he swore he could see the mist curl in upon itself- as if writhing in pain. “Something you have failed to do with your little dynasty.”

The floorboards of the tundra whined as he shifted upon his feet and briefly Peter wondered how long it had been since he had last heard something that wasn’t his or Mordechai’s voice, he wondered how long is had been since he’d heard the gentle lap of the waves against the ever gleaming hull of The Tundra. How long had it been since he’d wondered? Pondered? Questioned? Something was missing and he didn’t know what just yet, but gradually Peter was feeling less and less numb- almost alive.

He watched as Mordechai’s ever solemn face twisted, baring teeth in yet another disapproving snarl that cut Peter deeply, his mother had always used the same one. “Indeed Peter, you haven’t left us with much to work with at all. In fact you have let centuries of work, the work I started, go to waste.” The old man settled back, silver eyes glistening with an intense malice as the small of his back rested against the thin rail that stopped others from falling often enough- Mordechai seemed unbothered. Cold and callous. Just like that all muffling pillow that he’d only just now removed to recover his sense of smell. Something was still missing. “You let yourself be outsmarted because of your own pride, and i must tell you- that is hardly a thing to brag about,” Peter felt his cheeks flush, “If only you had minded your own business, if only you had not succumbed to foolish feelings…”

He said it as though it were a point of pride. That Peter should not feel a single thing and such a proposition made him bristle with an untapped energy. Speaking up, there was a sense of rebellion in his words- passion that was often smothered and extinguished within the Lukas family. “The apocalypse still happened Mordechai, with or without me. Are you jealous? That Jonah figured out things you could never and that in the face of those revelations- everything you built, all of your legacy and hard work was worthless. Useless!” Peter hadn’t realised it until he did it, flourishing his arms out from where they had previously born balled fists by his thighs, his fingers splayed and his bulky form vulnerable as he let out a firm and defiant laugh. “It’s not my fault!” 

He paused, hopped up on the adrenaline he felt from pushing aside decades worth of neglect and shame and everything else that had compacted Peter so firmly before. His tone was manic. “Is that what he told you at your deathbed, old man? As you grappled for breath and begged him to stay, because knowing him and knowing how intoxicating he is, I know you did. Did he laugh at you and your clinging to mortality? If only you had not succumbed to such foolish feelings.” He mimicked Mordechai’s words, sneering them through a hungry mouth.

That was it. The missing piece. Mordechai’s Jonah Magnus or rather Peter’s Elias Bouchard. 

Peter was dead and Elias was alive, he had been dead for some time and perhaps there was no avoiding being dead for some time more- torn apart by the Archivist’s harsh eyes and breathless need for information, now nestled somewhere part way between the End’s oblivion and his own patrons loneliness. It was here, in the expanse that was so narrow that all air was muffling and overwhelming that he had been locked into this cycle. Facing his problems, the loneliness of his childhood, the neglect of his parents and the sharp shame he received from being so unlike the one man who could possibly understand his difficult situation. Meanwhile the apocalypse continued, and Jonah Magnus took his throne- ruining things with his selfish need for perfection. 

How scared he must be, knowing that his little plan will crumble soon enough, how worried he must be that all he has will be nothing. How lonely he must be, atop his high horse where he could berate Peter’s failings.

But there was a difference between Jonah Magnus, Elias Bouchard, and his grandfather. 

While Mordechai and every Lukas after him were rigid and cold.

Elias was hot, he was fire- Hephastus’s forge and twice over. From him steel would bend and the unbreakable sweated until it melted away too. It was his insufferable passion, his constant moving and dedication- the life that inhabited a long dead man- one who refused to die. His heat was unstoppable, both the desolation as it tore lives apart and ruined the world for it’s master’s joy but also that of fireplaces in the alps, fingers that soothed him as he shook on a night- haunted by nightmares. Elias was the sun and in comparison to him, the Lukas family could melt. Peter would melt, just to bathe in something that was so different and so unique that he couldn’t help but fall in love with it time and time again, regardless of criticisms or snark or arguments or pain.

And vaguely he knew Elias would not dance like this with him, if he did not feel the same.

They were a pair.

So Peter smiled when Mordechai responded. Grinned.

“Oh but you all but allowed him to do it. You permitted him to get the last missing piece to his plan and you very well knew the risk you were taking, but you were simply too big a fool to turn down his offer. Useless is precisely what you are, for it is with you all the hard work of your ancestors came to an end.” Mordechai seemed gradually more infuriated, chin tilting up as his arms folded over his chest judgmentally. “We all may have our moment of weakness, Peter. And you have had your fair share. But we all need not go out with a bang, as they say, if anything that defies our very purpose. You wished to go quietly, alone, did you not?” Yes Peter had, but he didn’t so he simply refused to give up just yet. “And yet you couldn’t even secure that for yourself. Simply too stubborn, as always.”

So dismissive, so proud and arrogant and thoroughly, thoroughly pathetic. Just like a certain house in the woods, with it’s old grave plots and spider webs. It's long tedious passageways and monumental rooms filled with empty books and glaring portraits, dull family dinners where his every move was judged and critiqued in a cold and demeaning manor. Just there to make him feel lonely, because that's all that mattered in the end. Just like a certain legacy, so pompous and pampered that it leeched off of his energy and good will and anything that could have been redeeming about him. Anything worthwhile.

Fuck the Lukas family. Fuck it all. 

“So what if i did?” Peter growled because he was angry, he was raging, he was pissed. Magma flowing through his veins as his great great grandfather seemed all the more distant and the world all the more faint. He felt watched for the first time in a long while, and if this was what Elias wanted. He would put on a show.

“It was my choice, not my weakness. I am not useless- I’m just not you. Not a stuffy old man preening for praise. What do you want me to say? Oh yes, great great grandpa Mordechai, you’re so clever! You’re so strong! So brilliant! WIth your superb plan that was always doomed to fail. So arrogant.” Peter pushed the words out with a ferocity he did not expect, hard steps pulling him closer as he invaded the other man’s space and pulled him up, to attention. So he could see the absolute apathy Peter held for his legacy.

“No. I’m not you. That’s not a failure.” Finally he drew to a close and found himself smirking at Mordechai’s incredulous expression, as if caught off guard. Good. “Not even going to dignify me with a whole response? Or is the thought of your own weaknesses, Jonah and your sentimental feelings, too intense for you to acknowledge?”

Peter spat in his face and pushed him back so the elder would have to brace himself weakly against the safety bar. “That’s a bit stubborn.” 

Mordechai had no response, Peter wouldn’t have cared to hear it anyway. The world of the lonely had fallen apart and Peter was neither dead nor alive. He had a long walk back to London to be getting on with to.


End file.
